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Effeminate Argentineans

I got this picture off the Internet and it is freakin halaaarious! This is a picture of the Argentinean football(soccer) team standing in for a free-kick, some smart-aleck just added in the purses. You can see Ortega and Batistuta in the picture, they all look so effeminate.

Laila Lalami: Why Hollywood Owes Me Money

I came across this article on Moorishgirl's blog. It's a bit funny. Click here to read the whole article.

[Why Hollywood Owes Me Money
by
Laila Lalami
Stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims in American movies is a common practice.
And Jackie Chan’s latest U.S. release, "Operation Condor," is no exception. But
rather than try to raise public awareness by explaining to whomever will listen
that this practice is not only morally wrong but also potentially harmful to a
large American minority, I’d like to ask for royalties.

Yes, royalties......]

A Muslim William Wallace

Why doesn't Hollywood make a big budget movie on a Muslim character from Islamic history without demonizing the Muslim character? There are many heroes in Islamic history, far more heroic than William Wallace.

I don't think Hollywood will ever make a right movie about a Muslim hero like a Muslim William Wallace so to speak. Making a movie like Braveheart with a Muslim hero is just something we Muslims are going to have to do by ourselves. So, I have taken upon myself to write and Inshallah create this work of art. Yes, that's right! I'm going to take a crack at this task known as "creating entertainment magic". I don't have the skills to make a movie or a video game, but what I can do is write a book or a script and pitch the idea to a movie studio or a game developer. If the book comes out great and sells then it might be made into a movie and who knows, maybe into a franchise!

So, who should I write about? The greatest hero in Islamic history is always going to be the last messenger of God (Muhammad) and also the greatest true story ever told with such accurate details. Of course there are others, but non like him who's life story is like a perfect tome. But the problem with the story of the Prophet is that the protagonist can't be shown on the screen. It just wouldn't look right that the main character is missing from the whole movie, it didn't look right in Moustapha Akkad's "The Message" and it wouldn't in any other movie; therefore, it can't be a movie with prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The first objective to telling the story would be to educate the audience about Muslims and Islamic history. Second objective would be to entertain the audience. Third objective would be to give the Muslim audience, particularly the youth a sense of pride for being a worshipper of a one and only true God (Allah). Also, I'm primarily interested in showing the Muslims of today how the rules of Jihad apply in a modern warfare scenario in a time, where the lines are so gray.

Keeping in mind the stated objectives, I have started to work on a fictional literary piece. I have written the whole outline and will post the first chapter as soon as I'm finish writing this whole thing.

The Best War Epic On Film

"Braveheart" has always been my all time favorite movie since the first time I saw it in 1997 or was it 1998? Anyway, I'm never fond of war movies, just the exceptional ones like Braveheart, Gladiator, Band of Brothers, and Saving Private Ryan while the rest belong in the trash.

Lets all just admit it, war movies before Braveheart were just plain lame. They're always mixed with this superficial American patriotic crap. Even at a naive age of 10, I always thought Hollywood portrayal of patriotism seemed so superficial to me. I've seen many war movies mostly involving the US. US in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and so on.

There was this TV series "Tour of Duty" that I used to watch in the 80s. It was about these young US soldiers in the end days of the Vietnam war. I swear to God, never in a million years I could have ever known that the US lost in Vietnam from watching that show or any other war movie I've seen on the Vietnam war. Thanks to my high school history book, it came as a shock to me when I learned the real history about the Vietnam war in my history class. When my teacher told the class that the US lost to the communist/socialist in Vietnam, I went "huh?". I said it out loud in class "Quit screwing around with my mind!". :)

Braveheart was first released on May 26, 1995. I saw its trailer, but I just wasn't interested enough to watch the movie. If there is anything worse than a movie with modern warfare then its a movie with medieval warfare. But Braveheart changed all that. Because before Braveheart, sword fights and shooting arrows looked so fake in the movies. Even the killing, the agony of dying, body piercing [swords, arrows, bullets], and gushing blood seemed so unrehearsed. But when I accidentally saw Braveheart, I was blown away by the well choreographed battles unlike in some movies, where they show random scenes of battles and can't make out the head from the tail. Braveheart appealed to me as an outstanding movie for mainly [4] reasons:

1. Story: Randall Wallace wrote an extraordinary script. William Wallace is not your typical fairytale hero. Wallace faces problems of what any real freedom fighter goes through, getting the oppressed to see and share his vision, to change the status quo, to weed out the traitors in his own camp, take on his powerful adversaries head on, and in the end pay the ultimate sacrifice.
2. Score: James Horner composed an excellent score for this movie. The score really gave the audience a Scottish feel.
3. Realism: The fights and battle sequences seemed so real. The film makers didn't go for that convenient scene change whenever a sword went through somebody's abdomen. Someone always got bruised or cut anywhere on their body wherever the sword struck.
4. Context: I am so sick of watching movies, where Americans are portrayed as the good guys, risking life and limb to save the very indigenous people they invaded. The movies overlook all the atrocities that they committed in reality. Probably that's why it seemed believable and I didn't get that being disgusted feeling when I watched it. Wallace wasn't fighting for glory or the likes, I mean he didn't have that Achillian attitude like most Americans do.

Some parts in the movie did look over dramatized and historically very inaccurate, but overall it was a great movie. Although the real William Wallace didn't show any mercy to any of his enemies and killed them as he saw fit like burning them alive, but the Wallace in the movie is what I prefer to remember.

All Time Favorite Songs

New songs come and go on the radio. Over time one gets tired of listening to the same song over and over again. Same is with my liking of song/music. If I find a good song then I listen to it until I can't bare to hear it ever played again. I've come to notice a pattern in my music liking and it might be the same for everybody.



Whenever I become fond of a particular song, this song goes through three phases of fancy. In the first phase, I can't get enough of the song, I want to hear it as much as I can over and over. As the number of times hearing that song increases, my desire to hear it goes down to a point, where I don't enjoy listening to it. This is where the degree of fancy enters the second phase. In the second phase, the degree of fancy is neutral, where I don't enjoy hearing the song, nor do I mind it being played or am irritated by it. As time progresses, my degree of fancy completely diminishes in the third (last) phase. In this phase, I can hardly bare to hear the song being played, even in the background. The very sound of it is like a sharp sting in my brain. It feels as if the sound waves of the song are jamming my brain waves. Every time I driven along with a friend in a car with that song playing becomes a traumatic experience. I always go "find a happy place, find a happy place"!



The time span for a particular music/song to go through this process is usually between one day to a few of months. Some songs or music tracks I don't ever get tired of listening. These songs/tracks are few in number, but each time I hear them is just like the first time I heard it.



Those tracks are:

1. Anggun - Snow on the Sahara feat. Enigma
2. Avril Lavigne - I'm With You
3. Billie Myers - Kiss The Rain
4. Braveheart - Theme (Techno Remix)
5. Gladiator - Elysium, Honor Him, Now We Are Free (Merged)
6. Linkin Park\Jay-Z - Numb/ Encore
7. K-Pax OST - Grand Central (Edward Shermur)
8. Keane - Somewhere Only We Know
9. LeAnn Rimes - Cant Fight The Moonlight (remix)
10. Liz Phair - Why Can't I Breathe
11. Matrix OST - Clubbed to Death (Rob D)
12. Michelle Branch - You Set Me Free
13. Seal - Kiss From A Rose (Acoustic)
14. Silent Hill 2 - Theme Of Laura (Reprise)
15. Silent Hill 2 - True
16. Sixpence None The Richer - Don't Dream It's Over
17. Switchfoot - I Dare You To Move
18. U2 - Mission Impossible Theme
19. U2 - Stuck In A Moment
20. Unreal - Straylight
21. Vertical Horizon - Best I Ever Had
22. Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want

The Brass Crescent Awards

There was a Muslim Blog awards held a few weeks ago known as "The Brass Crescent Awards" held by the "City of Brass" and "Alt.Muslim". I came to know about it through Abdusalaam Al-Hindi. When I first heard of this, I thought there would be thousands of Muslim Bloggers out there who would be nominated. But, as the nomination phase came to an end, it turned out that only a handful of Bloggers including myself (Knightmare) were on the list of nominees. From the looks of the short list of nominees, only 4 to 5 bloggers make up the Muslim voice in the blogging community. Even though I didn't win in any category or even get a honorable mention, it felt weird to see my name and blog on the voting list. Well at least they nominated me just for applying, then again who didn't?